No;--there had been no strife with the heavenly messenger. As a child
falls asleep in its mother's arms, so fell Mrs. Montgomery asleep in the
arms of an angel--tranquil, peaceful, happy. I say happy--for in lapsing
away into that mortal sleep, of which our natural sleep is but an image,
shall the world-weary who have in trial and suffering grown heavenly
minded, sink into unconsciousness with less of tranquil delight than the
babe pillowed against its mother's bosom? I think not.
As I gazed upon her dead face, where the parting soul had left its sign
of peace, I prayed that, when I passed from my labors, there might be as
few stains of earth upon my garments.
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, Yea, saith the Spirit, for
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”
I found myself repeating these holy words, as I stood looking at the
white, shrunken features of the departed.
It was not until the next day that I saw Blanche. But Constance was with
her immediately after the sad news jarred upon her sympathizing heart.
“How did you leave her?” was my anxious query, on meeting my wife at
home.
“Calm,” was the brief answer.
How much the word included!
“Did you talk with her?”
“Not a great deal; she did not seem inclined to talk, like some who seek
relief through expression. I found her alone in the room next to the one
in which the body of her mother was lying. She was sitting by a table,
with one hand pressed over her eyes, as I entered. 'Oh, my friend! my
dear friend!' she said, in a tone of grief, rising and coming a step or
two to meet me. I drew my arms around her, and she laid her head against
me and sobbed three or four times, while the tears ran down and dropped
upon the floor. 'It is well with her!' I said.
“'Oh, yes, my friend, it is well with her,' she answered, mournfully,
'well with her, but not with me. How shall I walk onward in life's
difficult ways, without my mother's arm to lean upon? My steps already
hesitate.'
“'You have another arm to lean upon,' I ventured to suggest.
“'Yes, a strong arm upon which I can lean in unfaltering trust. In this
God has been good to me. But my wise, patient mother--how shall I live
without her?'
“'She is only removed from you as to bodily presence,' said I. 'Love
conjoins your souls as intimately as ever.'
“'Ah, yes, I know this must be. Too many times have I heard that
comforting truth from her lips ever to forget it. But while we are in
the body, the mind will not rest satisfied with any thing less than
bodily presence.'
“I did not press the point, for I knew that in all sorrow the heart is
its own best comforter, and gathers for itself themes of consolation
that even the nearest friend would fail to suggest. We went in together
to look at the frail tabernacle from which the pure spirit of her mother
had departed forever! How sweetly the smile left upon the lips in the
last kiss of parting, lingered there still, fixed in human marble with
more than a sculptor's art! There was no passionate weeping, as we stood
by the lifeless clay. Very calm and silent she was; but oh, what a look
of intense love went out from her sad eyes! Not despairing but hopeful
love. The curtain of death hid from her no land of shadows and mystery;
but a world of spiritual realities. Her mother had not gone shrinking
and trembling into regions of darkness and doubt; but in the blessed
assurance of a peaceful reception in the house of her friends.
“How a true faith,” said I, strongly impressed by the images which
were presented to my mind, “strips from death its old terrors! When the
Apostle exclaimed, 'Oh, grave, where is thy victory? oh, death, where
is thy sting?' his mind looked deeper into the mystery of dying, and
saw farther into the world beyond, than do our modern Christians, who
frighten us with images of terror. 'I will lay me down in peace
and sleep,' when the time of my departure comes, should be the
heart-language of every one who takes upon himself the name of Him who
said, 'In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place
for you, that where I am, ye may be also.'”
“Since I knew Mrs. Montgomery, and felt the sphere of her quality,” said
Constance, “my perceptions of life and duty here, and their connection
with life and happiness hereafter, have been elevated to a higher
region. I see no longer as in a glass darkly, but in the light of
reason, made clear by the more interior light of Revelation.”
“And the same is true with me,” I replied. “We may well say that it
was good to have known her. She was so true, so just, so unconscious
of self, that truth, justice, and unselfishness were always lovelier in
your eyes for having seen them illustrated in her person. And there
was no pious cant about her. No parade of her unworthiness; no solemn
aspects, nor obtrusive writings of bitter things against herself. But
always an effort to repress what was evil in her nature; and a state of
quiet, religious trust, which said, 'I know in whom I have believed.'”
“Ah,” said Constance, “if there was only more of such religion in the
world!”
“It would be a happier world than it is,” I answered.
“By the impress of a life like hers, what lasting good is done!” said my
wife. “Such are the salt of the earth. Cities set upon hills. Lights in
candlesticks. They live not in vain!'”
I did not see Blanche until the day of burial. Her beautiful face was
calm, but very pale. It bore strongly the impress of sorrow, but not of
that hopeless sorrow which we so often see on these mournful occasions.
It was very plain that her thoughts were not lingering around the
shrouded and coffined form of what was once her mother's body, but were
following her into the world beyond our mortal vision, as we follow a
dear friend who has gone from us on a long journey.
And thus it was that Blanche Montgomery entered upon her new life.
Death's shadow fell upon the torch of Hymen. There was a rain of grief
just as the sun of love poured forth his brightest beams, and the bow
which spanned the horizon gave, in that hour of grief, sweet promise for
the future.
These exciting events in the experience of our young friends had come
upon us so suddenly, that our minds were half bewildered. A few weeks
served, however, to bring all things into a right adjustment with our
own daily life and thought, and Ivy Cottage became one of the places
that grew dearer to us for the accumulating memories of pleasant hours
spent there with true-hearted ones who were living for something more
than the unreal things of this world.
How many times was the life that beat so feverishly in the Allen House,
and that which moved to such even pulsings in Ivy Cottage, contrasted in
my observation! Ten years of a marriage such as Delia Floyd so unwisely
consummated, had not served for the development of her inner life to any
right purpose. She had kept on in the wrong way taken by her feet in
the beginning, growing purse proud, vain, ambitious of external
pre-eminence, worldly-minded, and self-indulgent. She had four children,
who were given up almost wholly to the care of hirelings. There was,
consequent upon neglect, ignorance, and bad regimen, a great deal of
sickness among them, and I was frequently called in to interpose my
skill for their relief. Poor little suffering ones! how often I pitied
them An occasional warning was thrown in, but it was scarcely heeded
by the mother, who had put on towards me a reserved stateliness, that
precluded all friendly remonstrance.
At least two months of every summer Mrs. Dewey was absent from S----,
intermitting between Saratoga and Newport, where she abandoned herself
to all the excitements of fashionable dissipation. Regularly each year
we saw her name in the New York correspondence of the Herald, as the
“fascinating Mrs. D----;” the “charming wife of Mr. D----;” or in some
like style of reference. At last, coupled with one of these allusions,
was an intimation that “it might be well if some discreet friend would
whisper in the lady's ear that she was a little too intimate with men of
doubtful reputation; particularly in the absence of her husband.”
This paragraph was pointed out to me by one of my patients. I read it
with a throb of pain. A little while afterwards I passed Mr. Floyd and
Mr. Dewey in the street. They were walking rapidly, and conversing in an
excited manner. I saw them take the direction of the depot.
“Here is trouble!” I said, sighing to myself. “Trouble that gold cannot
gild, nor the sparkle of diamonds hide. Alas! alas! that a human soul,
in which was so fair a promise, should get so far astray!”
I met Mr. Floyd half an hour later. His face was pale and troubled, and
his eyes upon the ground. He did not see me--or care to see me--and so
we passed without recognition.
Before night the little warning sentence, written by the Saratoga
correspondent, was running from lip to lip all over S----. Some pitied,
some blamed, and not a few were glad in their hearts of the disgrace;
for Mrs. Dewey had so carried herself among us as to destroy all
friendly feeling.
There was an expectant pause for several days. Then it was noised
through the town that Mr. Dewey had returned, bringing his wife home
with him. I met him in the street on the day after. There was a heavy
cloud on his brow. Various rumors were afloat. One was--it came from a
person just arrived from Saratoga--that Mr. Dewey surprised his wife in
a moonlight walk with a young man for whom he had no particular fancy,
and under such lover-like relations, that he took the liberty of caning
the gentleman on the spot. Great excitement followed. The young
man resisted--Mrs. Dewey screamed in terror--people flocked to the
place--and mortifying exposure followed. This story was in part
corroborated by the following paragraph in the Herald's Saratoga
correspondence:
“We had a spicy scene, a little out of the regular performance, last
evening; no less than the caning of a New York sprig of fashion, who
made himself rather more agreeable to a certain married lady who dashes
about here in a queenly way than was agreeable to her husband. The
affair was hushed up. This morning I missed the lady from her usual
place at the breakfast-table. Later in the day I learned that her
husband had taken her home. If he'll accept my advice, he will keep her
there.”
“Poor Mrs. Floyd!” It was the mother's deep sorrow and humiliation that
touched the heart of my Constance when this disgraceful exposure reached
her. “She has worn to me a troubled look for this long while,” she
added. “The handsome new house which the Squire built, and into which
they moved last year, has not, with all its elegant accompaniments, made
her any more cheerful than she was before. Mrs. Dean told me that her
sister was very much opposed to leaving her old home; but the Squire
has grown rich so fast that he must have everything in the external
to correspond with his improved circumstances. Ah me! If, with riches,
troubles so deep must come, give me poverty as a blessing.”
A week passed, and no one that I happened to meet knew, certainly,
whether Mrs. Dewey was at home or not. Then she suddenly made her
appearance riding about in her stylish carriage, and looking as
self-assured as of old.
“That was a strange story about Mrs. Dewey,” said I to a lady whom I
was visiting professionally. I knew her to be of Mrs. Dewey's set.
Don't smile, reader; we had risen to the dignity of having a fashionable
“set,” in S----, and Mrs. Dewey was the leader.
The lady shrugged her shoulders, drew up her eyebrows, and looked
knowing and mysterious. I had expected this, for I knew my subject very
well.
“You were at Saratoga,” I added; “and must know whether rumor has
exaggerated her conduct.”
“Well, Doctor,” said the lady, dropping her voice, and putting on the
air of one who spoke in confidence. “I must say that our friend was not
as discreet as she might have been. Nothing wrong--that is, criminal--of
course. But the truth is, she is too fond of admiration, and encourages
the attentions of young men a great deal more than is discreet for any
married woman.”
“There was an actual rencontre between Mr. Dewey and a person he thought
too familiar with his wife?” said I.
“Oh, yes. Why, it was in the newspapers!”
“How was it made up between the parties?”
“It isn't made up at all, I believe; There's been some talk of a duel.”
“A sad affair,” said I. “How could Mrs. Dewey have been so thoughtless?”
“She isn't prudent, by any means,” answered this intimate friend. “I
often look at the way she conducts herself at public places, and wonder
at her folly.”
“Folly, indeed, if her conduct strikes at the root of domestic
happiness.”
The lady shook her head in a quiet, meaning way.
I waited for her to put her thoughts into words, which she did in a few
moments after this fashion:
“There's not much domestic happiness to spoil, Doctor, so far as I can
see. I don't think she cares a farthing for her husband; and he seems to
have his mind so full of grand business schemes as to have no place left
for the image of his wife. At least, so I read him.”
“How has this matter affected their relation one to the other?”
“I have not seen them together since her return, and therefore cannot
speak from actual observation,” she replied.
There was nothing very definite in all this, yet it revealed such an
utter abandonment of life's best hopes--such a desolation of love's
pleasant land--such a dark future for one who might have been so nobly
blest in a true marriage union, that I turned from the theme with a sad
heart.